Do regular citizens, such as Rosa Parks, not have the same obligation?
Personally I consider civil disobedience of unjust laws to be acceptable, for either a single person or for an organized group of people (such as Uber).
Civil disobedience implies actions in the open and being willing to suffer the consequences of your actions. If Uber had made a public statement that they were instituting a policy to refuse service to city and law enforcement officials and were willing to take their lumps, you might have a point.
And uber does things in the open. They openly violate the law and reveal to citizens how much corrupt politicians are hurting them by taking away their transportation choices.
This works only if it happens on a massive scale. If Uber didn't use this program, it's likely that their civil disobedience would end before it's large enough to get their message out.
It appears that other ridesharing apps have managed to "get the message out" without devising nefarious plots to confuse law enforcement. And for that matter despite various covert Uber-run attempts to sabotage their business and take away the public's transportation choices.
The idea that Uber is some civil liberties campaign for improved transportation options rather than a corporation with an unusually aggressive disregard for anyone that gets in their way is rather exploded by the most cursory examination of their actions.
Which other ridesharing apps have fixed broken political systems? From what I can see, most of them wait for Uber to fix politics and then just swoop in after the fact to make money.
I don't think any ridesharing apps have "fixed broken political systems", least of all Uber. But there are many ridesharing apps which operated in local territories before Uber, and many of them managed to do it without writing software to deceive law enforcement, coordinating personal attacks on journalists who criticised them or trying to kill startup competitors with fake bookings.
Before Uber, SF, NYC and Mumbai and many other political systems prevented competitors from providing better service than yellow cabs. Uber's political activism has fixed this.
coordinating personal attacks on journalists who criticised them
This was an ethical hypothetical, not a thing that actually happened.
Uber made real bookings and then gave the driver a sales pitch during the ride. All they did was pay their competitors for the right to offer drivers a better deal.
Kind of the opposite of Google/Apple/etc colluding NOT to offer each other's employees a better deal.
To be honest, the fact that an executive is prepared to publicly advocate harassment of journalists as an "ethical hypothetical" thing is a pretty good indication of what they actually are prepared to do in private. Sorry but the "I'm a good friend who overheard part of the conversation and don't think he said the things he's already apologised for saying" defence isn't the most convincing, especially given the company's well-publicised use of comparable tactics in other areas, including hiring private investigators to go after employees that had reported sexual harassment. Your insistence that Uber made real bookings (and just happened to cancel most of them) is a lie, period.
You don't have to think taxi medallion laws are particularly rational to find Uber's behaviour in many, many areas indefensible.
Yeah, Rosa Parks civil disobedience was a for profit operation! Please stop insulting her. Uber is the embodiment of corporate evil, these people think they are above the law.
I didn't say she made a profit. I said she broke a law she felt was unjust, same as Uber, and that according to ForHackernews' reasoning she should not have done this. My point is that his reasoning is wrong, and merely a post-hoc rationalization for general dislike of Uber.
I did not make the comparison you seem to be arguing against, namely that Rosa Parks and Uber are equivalent in all possible ways.
They're making the important point that what people really mean is "laws I agree or don't agree with" not "laws". Hopefully not only on HN do people have reflective capacity to see this.
Personally I consider civil disobedience of unjust laws to be acceptable, for either a single person or for an organized group of people (such as Uber).